I am sitting on an airplane next to a round-faced little girl in pink. Her mother calls her “Mouse” and isn’t interested in talking to her, but she’s full of curiosity about everything from the ventilation system to the creation of the world, so she plies me with questions and stories for the whole flight.

She gazes out the window as we skim the cloudbanks. “It looks like we’re flying on glass.”

She asks, “Have you ever landed from the sky in water?”

“Not in this body.”

“But can people do that?”

“Oh, sure. There’s a kind of plane called a flying boat, or a seaplane, that lands on pontoons that keep it afloat. And then there are rocket ships that splash down and are fished out.”

“Have you ever touched the sun?”

“Not with my hand.”

“Sometimes I feel the sun is following me, real close.”

She thinks for a bit, then comes out with, “How was the world invented?”

“Some people say God made the world. Others say it began with a Bing Bang and the star-stuff has been expanding ever since.”

“I know a boy who says the world was made by God blowing sand.”

I falter a bit, as she quizzes me further on cosmogony and the on how “Cheeses” (it takes me a moment to realize she is talking Jesus) was born. Then she looks up at the air vent and asks me to show her how it works. I demonstrate turning it counter-clockwise to let the air out, clockwise to shut it off.

She laughs. Her mother looks sullen; it seems Mouse isn’t supposed to laugh.

I am so sorry for Mouse’s mother, because she is missing so much. Kids are the masters of imagination, and we gain so much by listening and sharing their stories, their dreams, their versions of reality. If mom would only listen to Mouse, then perhaps the 11-year-old inside the adult would come alive, bringing energy and joy and everyday magic. I profoundly hope that Mouse will survive the efforts to turn off her world of wonder, and will be able to claim the name and the role in life that pleases her.

Robert Moss

Robert Moss describes himself as a dream teacher, on a path for which there has been no career track in our culture. He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three ""Only"" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse.

Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the ""Way of the Dreamer"" radio show at www.healthylife.net.

He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.